I just arrived back from Ontario Campmeeting and Worker's Meeting. There I heard that Dr. Ben Carson is suffering from bone cancer. The workers prayed for him and his family.

Dr. Carson is known for his brain surgeries and is a role model for many inside and outside of the Adventist Chruch.

Dr. Lorraine Day was healed through the use of natural methods combined with prayer and divine aid.

I pray that Dr. Ben Carson will do the same.

I received the following e-mail update recently:

From: "Dirk Zinner"
>To:
>Subject: Fw: UPDATE ON BEN CARSON
>Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 15:47:19 -0400
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Mona Karst"
>Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2002 9:17 AM
>Subject: UPDATE ON BEN CARSON
>
>
> > > For Immediate Release
> > > July 15, 2002 - 5 p.m., EDT
> > >
> > > Contact: Celeste Ryan - cryan@columbiaunion.net
> > > Columbia Union Conference Office of Communication
> > >
> > > Update on Ben Carson
> > >
> > > Baltimore, MD -- Ben Carson's office today confirmed that he
> > > is alive and maintaining a full office and surgical
> > > schedule. Dr. Carson will continue working until early
> > > August when he will take a medical leave to have prostate
> > > cancer surgery.
> > >
> > > "Ben, Candy, and the kids were in church on Sabbath and were
> > > in high spirits," said Jerry Lutz, senior pastor of the
> > > Spencerville Seventh-day Adventist Church in Silver Spring,
> > > Maryland. "He is in no pain and continues his schedule and
> > > ministry at the church, where he teaches a Sabbath School
> > > class and is an elder."
> > >
> > > The family expressed appreciation for the calls, e-mails,
> > > cards, and concerns and asked that we keep them in prayer.
> > >
> > > The church asks that Adventists be considerate of the
> > > family's need for privacy and Dr. Carson's need to conduct
> > > business with patients at his office.
> > >
> > > Because Dr. Carson is a beloved member of the Seventh-day
> > > Adventist family, the Spencerville Church will share future
> > > news and updates via its Web site: www.spencervillesda.org.
> > >
> > > Please feel free to forward this information, but do not
> > > alter it.
> > >
> > > #####
> >
> >

Here's the very latest. This may be long, but it's quite inspirational:

The Doctor's Saving Grace

By Phil McCombs
A great healer has fallen ill.

Rumors began circulating in late June. Ben Carson has cancer. A Baltimore
radio station said it was brain cancer. Parishioners at one church, asked to
pray for him, were told he had bone cancer.

In fact, the famed Johns Hopkins pediatric neurosurgeon, who performs more
than 400 operations a year, saving children's lives and alleviating untold
suffering, has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer.

Carson's office and home have been swamped with calls, letters and e-mails
from thousands of former patients and admirers around the world. "People are
just grieving over this guy," an aide says.

"He can't die," says Shirley Howard, president of the Children's Cancer
Foundation. "We need him here on this Earth to cure our children with brain
tumors."

"I pray that you will have a speedy recovery," wrote Barry Kang, Class of
2003, Howard University College of Medicine. "Your achievements . . . and
your inspiring words have encouraged me."

"He performs miracles," says Dan Angel, a Hollywood producer who, with
Whoopi Goldberg as a co-producer, is planning a film on Carson's life, "and
now he needs one."

A ghetto kid from Detroit who overcame low grades and "pathological" anger
by turning his life over to God, avoiding a "victim mentality" and "using my
brain to make good choices in life," Carson has inspired a generation of
youngsters with his speeches and books.

"We have to change the tremendous emphasis on sports and entertainment,
and lifestyles of the rich and famous," he said in his keynote speech at the
1997 National Prayer Breakfast, as President Clinton and 4,000 other
dignitaries listened. "We need to emphasize the intellect."

The book "Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story" appeared in 1990, followed
by "Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence" (1992) and "The Big
Picture: Getting Perspective on What's Really Important in Life" (1999).

Now, a new chapter begins.

This afternoon, Carson is scheduled for an operation by Hopkins urologist
Patrick C. Walsh, who pioneered techniques for reducing impotence and
incontinence from prostate surgery.

Not until the operation -- and perhaps not until test results arrive in
the next few days -- will it be known whether Carson's cancer has
metastasized.

His life hangs in the balance.
The Doctor Is Involved
Carson sits in his office high in the vast Hopkins medical complex in
Baltimore -- a slim man in a white lab coat, wearing glasses and a modest
beard. What is striking about him -- almost overwhelming -- is the sense of
warmth and calm that seems to radiate from his core. You immediately feel at
ease, that he is completely present in the moment, that he cares deeply. At
the same time, there's a lightness to him, a quiet good humor, a ready
smile.

It's hard to imagine this gentle person as the bold warrior of medicine
who tackles tough cases other doctors won't touch, carving into children's
skulls to remove chunks of brain to halt devastating seizures, patiently
teasing out complex tumors in 12-hour operations and taking a lead slot on
the 70-member Hopkins team that separated conjoined twins in 1987 -- the
feat that earned Carson international acclaim.

He was 33 when he was named director of pediatric neurosurgery at Hopkins.
Now 50, he's also a professor of neurological surgery, oncology, plastic
surgery and pediatrics at the medical school.

"He's an enigma," confides Carol S. James, his senior physician's
assistant of two decades. "Someone who lives his morals and convictions
every day without waving the flag, who, if a parent says, 'I'm scared and
worried for my child, would you come and pray with me?' doesn't bat an eye
but does exactly that.

"Surgeons typically have big egos: 'I'm God. I'm wonderful.' But he's
nothing like that, never has been -- and I've known him since he was a pup,"
James said. "He's adored by friends, family, colleagues, patients. He also
feels that what he does in medicine, while important, isn't enough -- and
that's why he works so hard at being the right kind of role model for kids."

Adored? You hear it in the voices of the kids' parents. "It's like a
miracle," they'll say. "She's got her life back."

Now Carson hopes to get his back, too.
Suddenly a Patient
For seven weeks, Carson and his family have been on the emotional roller
coaster familiar to his patients and their parents.

It began in mid-June, when he had his annual physical. When the blood work
came back, it showed his PSA had gone through the roof. An elevated level of
prostate specific antigen in the blood is an indicator of cancer.

Carson's PSA had been edging up suspiciously for a while, and he'd had it
checked three times during the previous year. But now it was 5.7, with 4.0
being the top limit of normal.

A needle biopsy was done immediately. Carson was performing surgery when
the call came in (a nurse held the phone to his ear) with the biopsy report:
Not only did he have cancer, but it was "high grade." On a scale of 2 to
10, it was a 7.

"That threw me for a little bit of a loop," he recalls. "As I was driving
home that night, it really was weighing heavily on me. I started thinking, I
could die. I hadn't really thought about that before. I could actually die."

At home in the Maryland countryside, he gave the news to his wife, Candy,
and they were "both a little frightened."

The next day, however, Carson talked with Walsh, the Hopkins urologist.
"He told me, 'I personally feel that we can cure this' -- and he has
terrific numbers, not only for being able to cure you but preserve all your
functions. He invented the [modern prostate] operation, so I felt pretty
good after that. I had Candy come in and talk to him."

But then Carson started worrying again.

"I was still having some symptoms -- urinary hesitancy and things like
that -- that were a little hard to explain since my prostate wasn't actually
enlarged." Fearing the symptoms meant the cancer had spread, he talked to
his internist, who recommended an MRI scan "just to be on the safe side."

Carson had the MRI on July 3. "After it was over, nobody [in the room]
said anything, and I was thinking that somebody would be saying, 'Oh, it
looks great, don't worry!' Then one of the technicians handed me an envelope
and said, 'I thought you'd probably like to have a copy.' "

Carson went to his office and put the MRI screens -- they look like
X-rays -- on a light board, "and my heart just sort of sank because there
were all these spots, these non-homogeneous spots -- in the sacro-spine and
then moving up into the lumbar-spine, and I said, 'My God, it can't be. It
just can't be.' "

Bone cancer? Maybe.

"I said, 'Well, you know best, Lord.' Sometimes people's lives have a much
bigger impact after they're gone, and I was thinking, 'If that's what's in
the cards for me, that's fine.' As it says in Romans 8:28, 'All things work
together for good to them that love God.' "

He sat alone, doing paperwork, trying to forget the whole thing. It was 8
p.m. James, his assistant, came in and asked how the MRI went.

"I said, 'It's over there on the board; why don't you take a look?' She
went over and looked, and I didn't hear any sound from her. Then she came
back over, looking very grim, and neither of us said anything. And then she
said:

'You know, I've always been here for you.' "
Trust in the Lord
When Carson got home that night, he considered trying to hide the results
from Candy and their sons -- Murray, 18; Ben Jr. (B.J.), 17; and Rhoeyce,
15 -- but realized it would be impossible.

"I just told them, 'Well, there are some things on the MRI that don't look
so good. It could mean that it's spread, and we have a difficult time ahead
of us.' We talked about the power of the Lord, that He can heal anything and
He's healed much more dramatic things than this.

"Candy said, 'You know, sometimes the Lord puts these situations out to
manifest His power. You've seen it many times in your career, so there's no
reason it can't happen with you. Sometimes bad things go away miraculously.'
"

They prayed together. Then Carson called the chief of neuro-radiology,
reaching him at a restaurant, and asked if he could look at the MRI on his
computer when he got home.

"He called back about 10:30, and he'd seen the spotty areas [on the spine]
and felt pretty positive this was a congenital problem and that it might not
really be cancer at all.

"That made me feel a little better, but then I was thinking, 'Maybe he
just doesn't want me to feel bad.' "

The next day, July 4, Carson felt reflective. His life had taken a turn
into uncharted territory.

"I remember going out very early in the morning . . . and just taking the
dog and walking around the property, just noticing how beautiful everything
was, and looking at the leaves, looking at the grass, looking at the
cornfield, just thinking how wonderful life has been for me. And saying to
myself, 'You know, I've lived 50 years, twice as long as I ever thought I
was going to live when I was growing up. It's been a good life, and if it's
time for me to go, okay.' "

Later that day, he picked up his friend Shirley Howard -- her foundation
had built a special pediatric operating room for him, with pictures of
dancing cows on the ceiling and surgical instruments scaled down to
child-size -- and brought her out to the country for a day with his family.

"The doorbell rang," Howard recalls. "Murray was supposed to pick me up,
but it was Ben -- and he'd lost 12 pounds! 'I just want to talk with you,'
he said, so we rode and talked. I don't know if his family knew how bad it
was at that moment."

Indeed, the next day -- July 5 -- Carson found himself, like anyone in
such circumstances, struggling between faith and fear. On the one hand, he
sought peaceful surrender to God's will. The man of science, however, still
wanted answers.

So, after discussing his MRI with more experts, Carson scheduled a bone
scan for July 11 -- an even more sophisticated test that might give a
clearer indication of the nature of the spots on his spine.

But on July 8 came a small reprieve:

Carson had talked with an old friend, another neurosurgeon at Hopkins,
"and he said, 'Why don't you talk to our new spine surgeon? He's a terrific
guy, tremendous reputation.'

"So I showed the stuff to the spine surgeon, and he says: 'Hold it! I've
seen this pattern many times. Sometimes people think it's metastasized
disease, but it's not. Forget about it! It's totally nothing. You were born
this way.' "

Carson smiles.

"I canceled the bone scan, which was scheduled for today. I said, 'Hey,
life is wonderful!' I'm at peace. I've forgotten about it!" That was July
11.

After this afternoon's operation, more will be revealed.
A United Front
The Carsons have a big new house on 40 acres in the middle of a cornfield.
It's an oasis for the whole family, for Ben especially -- a peaceful,
organized haven away from the 14-hour days, the combat zone of endless
surgeries, emergencies, rounds, clinics, pain.

There's a grand piano in the living room, an American flag on the dining
table, Bibles in a nook where the family studies Scripture together on
Friday nights. They're Seventh-Day Adventists. Ben's mother, Sonya, who
lives with them, joined the church when Ben was born.

As Adventists, the Carsons don't smoke or drink. Candy was a vegetarian
when they married, and since he didn't like to cook Ben became one, too. In
recent years, though, he'd lapsed and begun eating chicken, fish and -- at
work -- junk food to fuel him through the hectic days.

Vivaldi's "Gloria" plays softly.

Candy appears -- a warm, friendly woman whose high spirits are evident
even in these circumstances. They met at Yale. She was a music major, also
from Detroit. They fell in love almost at once, and married in 1975 while
Ben was in medical school at the University of Michigan.

She's his stabilizer. She keeps the family running smoothly. For years,
Candy and her sons were "the Carson Four," the family string ensemble, ;
which played at hospital and other benefits. She also helps run the Carson
Scholars Fund, which has given more than $400,000 in scholarships to kids.
In church on Saturdays, Candy and Ben still hold hands like young lovers.

Now, in this crisis, she's had to change their home phone to an unlisted
number. "I was just fielding so many calls, spending time on the phone
reassuring people about Ben. It was draining! And it made me feel more
self-pity. Now I can keep my focus, get things done."

She's written a public statement, "Thoughts from the Carson Family," and
calls upstairs to Murray for a copy. He sends one fluttering down from a
balcony overlooking the living room.

"Although the knowledge [of the cancer] is devastating," it says, "we
still know that our God has a purpose in all things. . . . The physicians
expect that the surgery [will] eradicate the entire problem and leave Ben
with at least 10 more years, [but] we are praying for complete recovery
prior to that so that surgery will not be necessary."

Ten years?

"I asked Pat Walsh for the worst-case scenario," Ben explains. "Suppose
the cancer has spread all over the place, and I get [radiation or
chemotherapy] treatment. He said, 'Worst-case scenario, you've still got 10
years.' "

"I was thinking at first he's going to be gone within a month or two,"
Candy says, "so 10 years didn't seem that bad."

And, as the statement says, they've been hoping for a miracle. Ben has
even changed his eating habits.

"No more sodas, no more processed foods," he says. "Water and fruit juice!
Lots of fresh vegetables, lots of big fresh salads, organic foods! Before, I
would drink sodas and eat potato chips and silly things like that.

"Now I take a big fresh salad to work with me every day, and I have the
same thing when I come home. I'm getting my exercise, trying to get my
sleep."

He chuckles.

"So now I'm living by my own adage, because I used to say that if
everybody did these things there wouldn't be any medical profession, because
God made the human body in such a way that it repairs itself.

"We're all developing cancers all the time because of the environment. . .
. There are so many toxins, [but] a healthy immune system identifies those
as they're being created [and] destroys them. . . . If you have a very
healthy body it's going to fight those things off, and that's what I've been
doing."

Could he be in denial? Maybe, he admits.

"Will [the new lifestyle] eradicate the cancer that I have already? Maybe
not. Maybe if I went with it long enough it would, I don't know. I'm
rational enough that I'm going to go ahead and get the surgery done --
though it wouldn't surprise me if they don't find much."

In any case, the symptoms he worried about -- urinary hesitancy and so
on -- are gone.

"I feel great. I feel like I don't have cancer anymore."

Suddenly, there's laughter from the balcony. His mother stands there,
waving a Baltimore newspaper with a brief article about her son's impending
operation.

"People have been calling me asking me where to send flowers," Sonya
Carson says. "I said, 'Send flowers for what?' Now I see this story was on
the obit page!"

Everybody is laughing.
Heeding a Warning
Sonya Carson is an ebullient force of nature.

A domestic worker with a third-grade education whose husband left the
family when Ben was 8 and his brother, Curtis, was 10, she instilled
religious values in her sons, strictly limited TV time and made them read
two books a week.

"You weren't born to be a failure, Bennie. You can do it!" she'd say, as
Ben wrote in "Gifted Hands." "One of her favorites: 'You just ask the Lord,
and He'll help you.'. . . With Mother's constant encouragement, both Curtis
and I started believing that we really could do anything we chose to do."

As a result, Ben went from "class dummy" in fifth grade to the top of his
class in seventh. Curtis excelled, too, and is now a manager with Honeywell
in the Midwest.

Then, when Ben was 14, he experienced a life-changing incident. He flew
into a rage and tried to stab a friend in the belly with a knife -- but the
guy's belt buckle stopped the blade.

Shocked at what he had done, Ben locked himself in a room with a Bible and
read for hours, asking God to remove his anger because he knew it would
prevent him from achieving his dream of becoming a doctor.

It was removed.

These are well-known Ben Carson stories, the stuff of fable. Now that his
life has changed so dramatically, a new story is being shaped.

Ben is retooling his thinking -- not just on diet but on other matters as
well, and in deeper ways.

For one thing, he's determined to work less. "I'd already cut back," he
says. "Last year I only did 409 operations. My goal is to get down to about
only 350."

"He works 80 hours a day!" interjects Murray, who's now a student at Yale.
The family isn't letting him off the hook so easily.

"He's never had a real vacation," Sonya says. "Not a spare moment lost!"

Ben always takes work along on vacation, Candy explains. "He never stops."

There's a hint of pride in these cheerful complaints -- yet everyone knows
things must now change.

"I'm trying," Ben continues, "during this next year to get home by 7 or
7:30 because, you know, one of the things this cancer has done for me is
help me realize that you can't go through your whole life working yourself
to death.

"You've got to spend at least a little time relaxing and enjoying
yourself."

Then, quietly:

"You know, this may sound very strange, but I'm glad I got cancer. Because
it's really made me stop and think, and it's made me know that I need to
spend more time with my family.

"I've promised myself that I'll never, ever go back to being so busy that
I don't stop and smell the roses."
The Unstoppable Surgeon
Carson is in his operating room, the one with the dancing cows on the
ceiling, performing brain surgery.

It's early in the morning, July 22, two days before his departure from the
hospital on a family vacation to rest up for his own surgery.

Carson had met this patient, 15-year-old Caroline Schear, just a week
earlier. She was in such unremitting pain that he squeezed her into his
schedule.

She'd suffered headaches for two years, couldn't make it through a day at
school.

"There's no sense in her continuing to suffer," Carson had told the
Schears.

(Later this day, talking to 700 kids from schools and churches in a
Hopkins auditorium, Carson will say that doing brain surgery is "stressful.
Neurosurgeons die considerably earlier than other people because of the
stress. . . . When you're inside someone's brain, it's sort of like defusing
a time bomb.")

Now, he's inside Caroline Schear's brain.

Caroline has a Chiari malformation, in which part of the cerebellum at the
back of the brain has protruded down into the foramen magnum, the opening at
the base of the skull where the spinal cord begins. In layman's terms,
there's too much brain in too small an area. The solution is to "decompress"
the area by drilling and cutting away bone.

It's tricky work in high-risk terrain. A wrong move could affect vital
functions.

Caroline lies on the operating table on her stomach, anesthetized. A dozen
resident physicians, nurses and assistants work quietly and efficiently at
various tasks. Monitors beep.

At the beginning of the operation, the lower back of Caroline's head was
shaved. As Carson sat to one side studying her case file, the chief
neurosurgery resident, Dean Chou, made the initial cut -- a four- to
five-inch vertical incision at the lower part of her skull and upper part of
her neck.

Blood oozed. A nurse sponged it. Blue surgical drapes were placed until it
seemed Caroline had disappeared, leaving only a red wound. Carson and Chou
took up positions on either side of the table.

Now, the red wound is a bloody hole.

Smoke rises from it as Carson and Chou cauterize blood vessels. You can
smell the smoke.

The shiny instruments dance in the hole. Carson and Chou each work with
both hands.

An electric drill is brought into play, its high whine filling the room.
Then the snip-snip-snip of clippers cutting bone.

Outside in the waiting room, Jim and Sharon Schear and one of their sons,
Adam, pace anxiously.

"She never had surgery before, so she was terrified," Sharon says.

"Dr. Carson was good talking to her," Jim says. "She came away very
comfortable and clear about what had to be done."

The operation takes less than two hours. Carson appears in the waiting
room.

"Everything went very well," he reports. "It was very tight back there. .
. . The bone was quite a bit thinner [than in many cases], and those are the
patients who do very well. I'm expecting good things here."

Sharon hugs him.

Then Carson is off to make the rounds of his patients in the Johns Hopkins
Children's Center, give his speech, conduct a clinic for new patients and --
yes! -- pause long enough for lunch.

A big fresh salad.
Praising the Healer
A week later, Jim and Sharon Schear come on the phone from their home in
Annapolis.

"Caroline's been to the movies, to the mall, all over the place -- like
nothing ever happened!" Sharon says. "She's gone a week with no headaches.
She's just kind of been bopping around.

"It's like a miracle!"

"She's got her life back," Jim says.

Caroline comes on the line. "I can't describe how happy I am," she says.
"I can walk around and have fun with my friends!"

Carson "was the only one who would do anything about [my pain]. Other
doctors said, 'You're a teenager, you're under stress.' "

She's sad about Carson's cancer, amazed that he was able to operate on her
when his own life is threatened.

"He's incredible. He's so humble. I don't know what it is about him, but
he's just like an everyday person you'd see in the grocery store. You
wouldn't think he's this world-famous surgeon.

"He's like the closest thing to God, the way he helps people."
-------------------------------------------
Thanks Jennifer Huck at SAU Library
The Pastors Net
A service of MI Communication

Here is the follow-up from the Washington Post yesterday:

By Phil McCombs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 8, 2002; Page C01

Ben Carson, the famed pediatric neurosurgeon, inspirational author and role model for America's youth, was successfully operated on for prostate cancer at Johns Hopkins University Hospital yesterday, his doctor said.

"It went beautifully, there were no problems, everything looked excellent, and I'm expecting him to be fine," reported Patrick C. Walsh, a Hopkins urologist who has pioneered techniques in prostate surgery.

Walsh said he did not think the cancer has spread beyond the prostate gland or that Carson will have to undergo chemotherapy or radiation treatments.

Although final pathology reports on tests of tissue removed from Carson may take a few days to complete, Walsh said, "nothing looked suspicious enough" to his practiced eye to think the cancer had metastasized.

Carson was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer after a biopsy in mid-June.

Walsh has developed surgical techniques that can spare men the impotence and incontinence that often result from prostate surgery.

In Carson's case, Walsh said yesterday, he was able to spare the nerves governing urinary and sexual functions as he performed a radical prostatectomy -- the "complete removal of the prostate and seminal vesicles."

The operation took more than two hours.

Carson, 50, is the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Hopkins, where he performs more than 400 operations a year -- mostly brain and spinal surgeries -- saving children's lives and alleviating much suffering.

He received international acclaim in 1987 for his leading role on the 70-member Hopkins team that successfully separated twins conjoined at the head.

Carson also has inspired a generation of youngsters with his speeches and books, beginning in 1990 with "Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story" (written with Cecil B. Murphey). Growing up as a ghetto kid in Detroit, Carson says, he overcame low grades and "pathological" anger by turning his life over to God and "using my brain to make good choices."

He was recuperating yesterday evening and could not be disturbed for comment. A devout Christian, Carson was portrayed in a profile in yesterday's Washington Post as being at peace with his situation since he had turned the outcome over to "the Lord, [who] can heal anything."

Before yesterday's surgery, Carson told a reporter that he wouldn't know with total certainty that his cancer hadn't spread until the pathology reports came back -- in particular, results of the studies of lymph nodes removed during surgery.

"If it hasn't spread to the lymph nodes, then it can't be anywhere else," he had said, adding with a chuckle:

"My lymph nodes feel fine."

Yesterday Walsh was predicting that Carson would be proved right.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

Glad to know that he is going to be alright.